Is 'Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance' Trash or Treasure?

The penultimate game in the series before Kingdom Hearts III, as well as the first and only game on the Nintendo 3DS. With the upgraded hardware from the older DS, does Dream Drop Distance capture the spirit of Kingdom Hearts in both story and gameplay better than other handheld titles? Let's find out.

[@patsg1146]

I just noticed that you basically do through Paris twice, in this game : The City of musqueteers and La Cité des cloches...

[@rand0md00d3]

omg you're right X'D

[@ZeranZeran]

this game looks like it all takes place in the same city. So lazy with the design.

[@sonicthefox2478]

They actually tackled the time travel rules in this game. (They were sloppy about it, but still.) Young Xehanort mentioned that they can only move back and forward through time as long as a version of their heart still existed in that time. They also can't change history itself. It is beyond their power and control... for most people. (KH3) There is some more detail but it's more of a technical matter and it made more sense in 3 since they explained it there. Other than that, great summary of the story and nice video. :)

[@TrashorTreasure]

I'll have to look back on that, it's been a while since I did this video, but thanks for the clarification. :)

[@ZeranZeran]

Very well made video. I don't like DDD when I had it on 3DS, but this looks beautiful. Thanks for filling me in! New fan.

[@TrashorTreasure]

Thanks very much, man! Yeah, I imagine it can be a pain on the 3DS.

[@rextraostwinmoon4303]

Having 100%ed it a few days ago I agree with some points and disagree with others. For context it took me 83 hours in total, Proud (37 hours) & Critical NG+, in hindsight I could've saved 20 or so hours if I had gone with standard difficulty for the first difficulty since beginner lacks Risky Winds forecast which increases spirit rank in spirit creation and proud just soaks up so much time just to get high enough level to kill the necessary dreameaters or clear specific special portals for rare dream pieces required for top-tier spirit creation and as abilities are unlocked by dreameaters, well yeah... As dreameators are the only things that carry over too (besides trophies) and the first run is needed to unlock critical difficulty which is itself needed for a trophy, it only makes sense to aim for three star ranked top-tier spirits to carry over + most permanent abilities (second chance, once more, exp walker the most important) as quickly as possible. I first despaired at Flick Rush then realized by watching a guide that MegaFlare x2 + Elixir is sooooo fun to play, I also 100%ed Chain of Memories so the similar mechanics also played into it. I spent 10 hours entering and exiting balloon mini-game to max affinity with all 54 dreameaters, that wasn't even the worst part. It was grinding for the money needed to buy the balloons that felt like the absolute worst. Honestly, should've been 1-2 hours max, I don't know how this slipped through and who gave it the okay. For flowmotion, I hated it at first, then it grew on me and I really liked it for traversing around. Annoying in certain areas like Tron World. Gauge had me drop out of a few boss battles and it killed the momentum I was going with whatever character I was playing with at the time, especially when I was tracking down missing treasure chests, later I used a lot of drop-me-nots yeah, but in a certain way switching between the two also helped me with burnout as I played and thought about their perspectives and prior experiences (since I played all the KH games that came before it) I didn't find out how good balloon/balloonra/ballonga was until very late game on my second run but by then it was outclassed by mega flare + meteor. Since the latter are from endgame spirits though I'd definitely use balloon if I had to do this all again since it seems pretty OP and is highly accessible early on. Balloon (Not ra/ga) is hilariously the most effective command against Julius, the superboss. Took me additional three hours to track down all commands since I sold most I got for money (balloons) since to 100% item report you need one of each command. Birth by Sleep tracked and showed you which commands you had before so why not DDD? Annoying. I liked the idea of locking abilities behind dreameaters but it was just poorly implemented imo, it should've been like BBS where all abilities are perm unlocks and dreameaters are more easily crafted or unlocked through sidequests like finding them or helping them out from attacking nightmares etc. Anyways, I really liked the time-travel plot twist. I didn't feel like it invalided Sora's struggle in KH1 & KH2 at all, the implications of the timeline are very intriguing to ponder and watching KH X Back Cover just furthered my interest.

[@spydersoup8447]

If you think the way Dream Drop Distance explores time travel is tedious, you should see how it was explored in Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. Trust me, when you see how that game explored it, you'll see why I never want to include time travel in Sonic the Hedgehog ever again, with the only exceptions being the character Silver, Sonic CD and Sonic Generations. Also, Kingdom Hearts: Union X actually has what many people consider to be the best story from the Kingdom Hearts series.

[@Humbsnubs]

Deserves more views

[@TrashorTreasure]

Thanks very much! :) I greatly appreciate any help I can get.

[@justjunior9561]

I don’t like this game at all. If KH2 took the plot and threw it towards the roof then DDD threw it towards the bloody sun. The combat doesn’t help either, this game smells BBS, and no KH2, and to explain why that is I’m just gonna say Baloon. If BBS killed staggering and good boss design then DDD threw that corpse and launched it in a mountain. Also need I explain why having a continuous time limit in a hack and slash action rpg is a stupid idea? There are neat ideas here, like Flowmotion and i don’t think the Dream Eaters were a very aggressive introduction, in contradiction to this game’s “incredible” view in Time Travel, and Riku being a playable character was a good surprise, since this is technically the 3rd time he was playable in the franchise. At least in my view, this game has the second best soundtrack in the franchise, right next to KH2. 0.2 is a good game however. The KH2/KH1 type of combat is back, situations command are a welcome addition, shotlocks are back and better, graphics is an obvious plus and you can customize Aqua. Instant 10/10 Jk 0.2 is an 8/10 at most All of this is just my opinion btw

[@TrashorTreasure]

Indeed. Some of the new ideas in DDD were an interesting concept, it just needed a slightly better execution. I would like to at least see a more refined Flowmotion system, which we sort of have with the wall running in KH3. As 0.2 has proven though, we're going back to the basics, so hopefully everything will feel tighter.

[@jplayzgamez4677]

I loved the combat and I felt like they refined the whole deck thing from bbs

[@uprising4c19]

The objective reminds me of an idea of my World of Light Fanfiction, where certain worlds taken over by darkness needed to be freed, but no dream worlds required. In order to revive the worlds they need to use the Triforce since Link and Zelda took it with them alongside Tikki with the Triforce of Power in order to revive the worlds. The only world that needed more power than the Triforce was the Tokyo Mirage Sessions world since it had been in darkness longer than a few other worlds.

[@darthrowsdower3554]

i love the story for KH in general. the games have been hit or miss for me. i loved birth by sleep and of course KH 1,2,3. to me, playing dream drop distance is like trying to swallow dirty syringes and pretending to enjoy it. i just couldnt do it (my belly is full from gorging on chain of memories).

[@sirwolfy9372]

Have you noticed that everything goes wrong with Sora at the end of begging since you need to be lv1 next game?

[@MrScaryPasta]

Greetings from the future! KHUX ended on quite a banger! Turns out, Ventus is hundreds of years old and a Lost Master. He’s also a former Union Leader too.

[@marvinlugto7450]

2:27 Someone probably commented this already, but I think Sora and Riku are in their younger self in this game In order to forget their own abilities? To start at level 1 of the exam???

[@pn2294]

No it’s because they went back in time

[@Mr3DLC]

Im at least proud of the devs for giving us the chance to control kairi in the remind dlc Its like they admitted they xouldnt figure out what to do with her in the plot so they conceded her fate to the fans😂

[@ParavantStudio]

Didn't you feel like the combat in Fragmentary Passage was too "floaty" in comparison to KH2?

[@TrashorTreasure]

I guess oh so slightly, and I mean VERY slightly, but KH2 had a similar speed at the beginning of the game, but increased by a hell of a lot during endgame, so I imagine it'll the same case for KH3. I see 0.2 as that starting point.

[@ParavantStudio]

@@TrashorTreasure I was curious since one of the community's major complaints about that title and the KH3 demo is the floatiness, problematic hitboxes and the long animations (that leave Sora exposed for enemy attacks). But it seems like Square is looking into it. Also, on a completely unrelated side-note... is there a chance that you might ever review the Mass Effect trilogy? That would be an interesting watch, especially if you would enter it as a newcomer. However, the trilogy isn't available for the PlayStation 4 but it still is on PC and PS3. I strongly recommend PC however.

[@Mr3DLC]

You know we should call it the super keyblade or omega keyblade anything better than ki blade thats just confusing as hell or even the true keyblade or the one keyblade even

[@songwave7524]

you can just say "kye-blade" xehanort say the "x" symbole can be pronunced both like "key" or "kye"

[@sugarsmile7852]

Make marathon for treasure games

[@ThePreciseClimber]

*HD port

[@captawesome42]

"cool, she'll actually be able to do something in this series" - uh oh....=(

[@captawesome42]

you nailed the Drop System. People made a mountain out of a molehill. It literally never came up during my entire playthrough as they gave you plenty of ways to delay or drop manually to avoid EVER having it happen when you don't want it to. It's also just a terrible design decision.

[@captawesome42]

"we won't know anything about the black box until Kingdom Hearts 3" - uh oh...=(

[@lauraroberts3520]

This game is where everything became ruined as far as I’m concerned. 😮‍💨 Unnecessary time travel. Return of organisation xiii which we did not need. Nobodies having hearts, destroying any sense of suspense and peril that the Heartless once held. All just to make cheap narritive shortcuts for Nomura to use in KH3 to finish it. 😑

[@boromir0062]

Man I can't bring myself to like this game. I just hate it

[@Raylightsen]

Game is trash. Tge party system here us beyond garbage.